A Florida federal judge Friday denied Rockledge, Fla.-based Health First's request to dismiss claims that it defrauded the government hundreds of millions of dollars by providing kickbacks to physicians who referred patients to them, according to a Law360 report.
An unidentified whistleblower brought the case against Health First, a nonprofit health system that owns four hospitals, a medical center, insurance subsidiary multispecialty group and other facilities. According to the suit, Health First fraudulently billed the government for services that resulted from physicians who were paid various forms of kickbacks from 1999 to February 2013 in violation of the federal False Claims Act, the Florida False Claims Act, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Act, according to the report.
The whistle-blower, a resident of Brevard County, Fla., brought the action in federal court on March 27, 2014. The complaint was unsealed Feb. 12 after the U.S. government did not intervene, though it approved maintaining the action in its name, according to the report.
In its August motion to dismiss, Health First criticized the original lawsuit as lacking coherence and specificity. Health First claimed the lawsuit failed to specifically identify which of the eight defendants named in the lawsuit submitted the false claims and when the claims were submitted.
U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton denied the motion, pointing to an amended complaint, filed after the health system's motion to dismiss, which added some twenty pages of detail to the unidentified whistle-blower's allegations. A trial has been scheduled for February 2017, according to court documents.
The amended complaint still alleges Health Frist violated the Anti-Kickback Statute by providing kickbacks and incentives for referrals to physicians employed by Health First Medical Group, formerly called Melbourne Internal Medicine Associates, a multi-specialty physician group owned by Health First.
The incentives named in the complaint range from granting physicians the ability to invest in its facilities, paying them for inflated job titles and providing special benefits and perks, according to the report.
The defendants listed in the suit include Health First and its Florida entities Melbourne-based Holmes Regional Medical Center, Palm Bay (Fla.) Hospital, Cocoa Beach-based Cape Canaveral Hospital, Viera (Fla.) Hospital, Health First Plans and Health First Medical Group.
Health First could not be reached for a comment.